This is for Keeps
by ImaginaryPoet
Summary: Santana brings Brittany along for a summer in Miami complete with her crazy family.  Brittana/Calzona
1. Saying Goodbye

**A/N: **I don't own anything. I'm equally upset as the rest of you. Anyway, this is, of course a Brittana/Calzona crossover, with perhaps some surprises. Feedback is great, so leave it.

"Miami? Seriously?" the voice on the other end of the phone asked in the most obviously annoyed voice possible.

"Yes, Miami. I go every summer. My grandparents live there. You know this," she responded as she sorted her clothes into piles to take or leave.

"Yeah but…you never go this early into vacation! And you don't take Brittany with you!" Santana sighed.

"Listen, Quinn, I know that the three of us usually spend the first few weeks of summer hanging out, but my aunt only got the next two weeks off so we're going earlier than usual because we really want to see her. My mom was pissed that we couldn't make it to her wedding because of Nationals and she's dying to see my new baby cousin."

"That doesn't explain why-"

"_DYING_ Quinn!" Santana said, knowing that the interruption would aggravate the blonde on the other end. Just because she had gotten nicer didn't mean that she had to stop teasing her friend entirely.

"That doesn't explain why you have to take Brittany with you. She's the only other normal person in this town!"

"Aww, Quinnie, you think I'm normal?" She earned a sigh.

"Don't call me that," Quinn said, "it isn't bad enough that my two best friends are abandoning me all summer, I would like to know why."

"My apologies, Luce," she said with a smirk.

"SANTANA!"

"Your mother named you Lucy, Quinn, I'm just trying to respect Judy. And before you yell at me again, I'll have you know that my mother invited Brittany along because, for some reason, she thinks I'm nicer when Britt's around. With all the drama between my aunt and grandma lately, my 'usually less than pleasant attitude' isn't appreciated, her words,"

"If only she knew about all the drama between you and Brittany lately," Quinn decided it was her turn to tease.

"Bite me Fabray. The only reason you're not coming with us is because you're a bad influence," she smiled as she threw another shirt into her suitcase.

"WHAT? I'm not a bad influence! Why would your mother think I'm a bad influence? I have done exactly one bad thing in my life!"

"Sure you are, Quinnie, but it's not why you think," Santana practically sang.

"If it's not the baby drama then what?"

"You're 'awfully mean to that sweet and talented Berry girl from the Glee Club'. Again, her words," Santana laughed again.

"She did not say that!" Quinn demanded.

"Of course she did, I couldn't make that up."

"Ugh!" Quinn yelled, "She's not even here and Rachel is ruining my life!"

"Whatever, you have plenty to do this summer anyway. Miami would just take away from your busy life," Santana tried. While it did make her laugh, Quinn was still one of her best friends and she didn't want her to feel so shitty.

"Not a thing. You're leaving with Brittany in the morning. Mercedes is at some leadership conference. Mike and Tina are at Asian Camp. Puck is doing community service and serving at butler to Zizes, who by the way, no thank you. Sam is working all the time. Kurt is writing his musical. Artie freaks me out a lot, so that's just not going to happen. And Finn is dating Rachel! As much as I don't want to spend any time with him anyway, he's spending all of his time with _her."_

"You know Quinn…" Santana started, cautiously as possible.

"What? Why are you being sketchy?"

"Well, maybe I shouldn't say."

"Tell me."

"No, Quinn, I don't want you to do anything stupid."

"Tell me, Santana, tell me, I've been home, alone, by myself, with Judy, for two weeks because the day we got done with school, you told me that you and Brittany were leaving me to go to Miami so you had things to do and couldn't hang out with me and now my only socialization practices are speaking to each of you on the phone every night and creeping random people on Facebook, Santana, did you know Becky Jackson has more friends than me? TELL ME!" She said as fast as humanly possible.

"Wow. Ok. Quinn, you have to promise you aren't going to freak out."

"Go on!"

"I don't know how to tell you this, I thought you knew already, but I guess not. Brittany told me that she heard from Wheels, yuck, who heard from Tina, who heard from Mike that all of the boys on the football team are being forced to spend all summer in football camp."

"That's hardly news, Santana. Coach Bieste is good at her job, she wants to win."

"Well besides taking all of the boys, including Finnocence, away from YOU all summer, they are also being taken away from their girlfriends all summer."

"…And this is relevant to me because…?"

"Some girlfriends don't like that idea Quinn. Some girlfriends want their Frankenteens all summer. So when their Andre the Giants tell them they're going to camp anyway…" she said hoping Quinn had finally caught on.

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying, Treasure Trail dumped Finn, for good."

"Wait, why should I care? I don't want him back."

"Quinn," Santana said as though she were a mother instructing her toddler, "the only reason you and the 8th Dwarf never became friends was because of Phineaus With No Ferb. Now that you're both done with him, maybe you can become the friends you were always supposed to be," she said as she zipped the last of her bags.

"Santana," Quinn answered after a few seconds of pause, "you've been spending way too much time with Brittany. Not only have you gone soft, but you're also alluding to Disney. Often."

"Well Fabray, maybe by the end of the summer I'll be ready to sing a duet with your new best friend."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Quinn said.

"That's the thing about you Quinn, sometimes you force yourself blind to what's right in front of you."

"You would know," Quinn said, "have a safe trip and don't forget to call. Not that I care about you or anything, I just would like to know that Brittany's alright."

"Thanks Quinn. Don't worry about us, we'll keep in touch." Santana almost hung up the phone when she heard,

"Santana," Quinn called, "whatever happens this summer, just know that I'll always be your friend, both of you. We seem to forget how important the three of us really are to each other."

"Not this summer, Quinn. I promise you I won't forget."


	2. On the Way Down

**A/N: Chapter 2, review, I still own nothing. It has been suggested to me that this should be classified as a Santana/Brittany story, so that may happen, but there will still be Calzona, so no tears.**

**Xxx**

The ride to the airport was incredibly more eventful than most. Brittany went on and on about her opinions on flying and airports, citing Nationals as her best example.

"And then the security lady told Mr. Shue that if he didn't let her check his hair for weapons he would be arrested!"

Santana's parents couldn't help but laugh at Brittany's stories. They had known her since Santana's very first day of Kindergarten, when the five-year-old proudly walked up to the couple on the playground and said, "Hi, I'm Brittany S. Pierce and I'm Santana's best friend." Whatever anyone else had decided to write the girl off as, the Lopez family knew that she was the most loyal and true friend their daughter had, and to them, nothing else mattered.

"I'm so sorry we couldn't be at Nationals, girls," Mrs. Lopez said, "I was in the middle of a really important case and Daddy had surgeries the whole weekend."

"Oh, it's ok Mrs. Lopez," the blonde said cheerfully, "you didn't miss very much. Just Quinn's haircut and Rachel and Finn's on stage make out. I wish I could have missed that," she finished.

Santana, who had heard her parent's excuses several times already wasn't as positive about their absence as Brittany was. They had always spent too much time working. It wasn't that they were bad people, or even that they were bad parents. They were just a lot better at their jobs as a lawyer and doctor.

"So Brittany, did your folks make it out to see you guys?" Dr. Lopez asked.

"They couldn't make it either," she said sadly, "my mom really wanted to be there but she couldn't afford to miss out on the weekend overtime. Plus, my sister is still in Cheerios and my mom didn't want her home alone with Charity and Lord Tubbington. They're kind of mean to her."

"I understand," he said, "what's your dad up to these days?"

"He still lives in Milwaukee. He couldn't come to New York because Vivian doesn't like crowds. He called to wish us luck before we left though."

Another thing that most people didn't know about Brittany was her family situation. When she was in the first grade, her parents decided to divorce. Her dad had gone to Milwaukee with Vivian, his secretary, to work as an accountant on a dairy farm. Brittany thought that was kind of gross. Her mother worked as a Sous Chef in a French restaurant in downtown Lima. She taught Brittany how to make a lot of dishes, like her favorite, fondue. When she couldn't be around though, as she did have two children to take care of, she knew that the Lopez's would be there for Brittany, which she greatly appreciated. The Lopez's knew all about the things that the Pierce's had been through and they weren't about to judge Brittany for the things she couldn't control. In fact, if they were going to judge her on anything, it would be that despite her circumstances, she managed to turn out to be the nicest person either had ever met.

"You know, it's not even a big deal Mom, nobody's parents went," Santana said, trying to ease the sadness she knew Brittany was feeling.

"No kidding? I would have thought for sure that Judy would have gone."

"She's busy a lot trying to bond with Quinn and become an independent woman," Brittany said.

"Oh, that's right. Well I am absolutely surprised that Hiram and Leroy didn't go."

"Leroy was on call all weekend too," Dr. Lopez told his wife.

"Can we please not talk about Dr. and Mr. Manhands anymore?" Santana pleaded.

"Santana!" her mother scolded.

"Rachel's really nice, once you get past the fact that she's totally annoying," Brittany said.

"Comments like that aren't welcome at your grandparent's," her mother warned, "you know that things with your grandmother and Aunt Callie aren't the best. We're trying to bridge the gap." She locked her fingers together as she spoke. "Besides that, we weren't able to go see her after her accident, when Sophia was born, or when she got married. She's my baby sister and even if my mother is being difficult about this, I want to be able to support her. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Mother."

After an awkward moment of silence, Brittany spoke,

"Hey San, why are your aunt and grandma fighting?"

Mrs. Lopez quickly intervened in her best lawyer speak, "Well, my mother is old fashioned. Even though she is a lawyer, she's still not as accustomed to the changing world we now live in. She can't seem to grasp that-"

"She's gay," Santana interrupted, "she's gay and my grandma hates her for it, and can we please stop talking about this now?"

"Oh," was all Brittany could say.

"It's ridiculous really," Dr. Lopez said, "it doesn't change a damn thing about her. I don't understand why your mother thinks it's her place to judge. So what if she had a baby with her best friend? It's not like she's without fault. We all know that your parent's wedding anniversary is only 5 months before your birthday. Who does she think she's fooling?"

"Wait, Mom, seriously?" Santana's ears perked.

"Seriously," her father spoke, "and you know, your Aunt Callie's a good person. One of the best people in fact. She never asked for a cent of their money, and even when they cut her off she didn't ask us for anything either. Probably because Aria had already told her that-"

"Don't bring Aria into this, Juan!" her mother warned.

"Anyway, she's a good person. She's a fantastic doctor. She's a wonderful sister-in-law and aunt and I'm sure that her new wife and daughter are pleased as hell to have her, even if her mother isn't. Let me tell you something about those gays," he said as Santana cringed, "they aren't any different than anybody else. I'll tell you, that Leroy Berry is one of the best damn doctors I've ever seen or had the pleasure to work with. And his daughter is a friend of yours, so he's a good parent too."

Brittany nodded enthusiastically while Santana just sighed with embarrassment. Trying her luck, Brittany asked him a question, "So Dr. Lopez, if you had a gay child, you would still love him or her?"

Santana glared at Brittany. He thought for a moment before he spoke,

"Brittany, if my son or daughter came to me and told me that they were gay, and they were half the people they are now, I couldn't be prouder," he said, looking into the rearview mirror and winking at his daughter.

"I'll be sure to let Mateo know," Santana said snarkily, angry that her older brother was flying to Miami straight from UCLA.

"Your brother isn't gay," Mrs. Lopez said with an equal amount of fierce in her voice. It was moments like that when Brittany was sure that Santana was this woman's daughter.

"Wish he was sometimes," Dr. Lopez said laughing, "if he found himself a rich boyfriend, he'd cost me a lot less money."

Her mother rolled her eyes, "Girls, we're pulling off the exit to go to the airport now, so if you need to make any calls or go potty, do it as soon as we're out of the car. We'll be in the air for two hours."

"I should call my cats and go potty before we leave," Brittany said.

Santana couldn't help but smirk, "This is going to be quite the trip."


	3. Leaving On a Jet Plane

**AN: Hey everyone, sorry for the hiatus, I've been a lot more occupied with school than I imagine I'd be. I have exams now, but thankfully those are more spaced out, so I figured I'd be able to write to you, since I know it's been a long while. Thanks to those of you who have reviewed/subscribed/read/endured the space between updates thus far. I own nothing, sadly. Enjoy.**

**xxXXxx**

The rest of the ride had been surprisingly dull, not that anyone minded. Brittany, who had been expecting a repeat of Nationals, was thrilled as Dr. Lopez pulled right up to a plane and instructed the girls to grab their bags and board.

"But…where do all of the other people fit?" She asked when she saw the very small plane.

"No other people, Brittany, just us Lopez's and the flight crew," the doctor responded as he closed the hatch on the family SUV and followed the women up the steps to the plane.

"You have your own plane?" She asked, still mesmerized by it all.

"It's my grandpa's," Santana said, "he does so much business that it just ended up making more sense for him to buy a plane and hire a crew than it did for him to use commercial air."

"He insisted on flying us in his plane because you just can't have the same things in a commercial plane that you can in a private anymore. It's sad really, that society has reached a point where hardworking men and women can't enjoy a simple champagne brunch in flight because-"

"Mom!" Santana interrupted, "Your lawyer is showing. And kind of, so is your Judy."

"My Judy?" the older woman questioned.

"Mrs. Fabray used to kind of be really into alcohol," Brittany explained.

"She still is," Santana added, "but at least now she tries to plan her drinking around Q's life. Sometimes."

The three women nodded in awkward agreement as Santana's dad finally finished talking to the pilot.

"Chuck says the skies are looking clear! We should get to Miami in pretty good time. They're just finishing up some pre-flight stuff so they'll let us know when we'll be heading up."

"Is Aunt Callie going to be there when we get in?" Santana asked and Brittany's ears perked up.

"Daddy thought it would be a good idea if we all got there a day or two before Callie did. He thinks Mom still needs some time to adjust," her mother said as convincing as possible.

"Does Grandma even know Aunt Callie is coming?" Santana asked.

"Technically, she hasn't been formally informed, but it has been heavily implied."

"So, she's just going to show up with her _**daughter**_ and _**wife**_and nobody expects Grandma, the same woman who refused to even go to her wedding to said _**wife**_, to just be totally cool with it?" Santana barked.

"It's much more complicated than that," her mother said, as her father stood behind the bar and nodded, not in agreement with his wife, but with the obvious lack of logic in the set up which was just pointed out by his 17 year old daughter.

"I told them it was a bad idea too, mija," her dad said as he took his seat and a glare from his wife.

Before the couple could get into it, her phone rang, and she moved to a more private seat, all while holding a finger in the air that meant 'this is not over':

"Hello, you've reached Demetria Lopez,"

"I like how she's always really fancy when she answers the phone," Brittany said to break the silence.

"Don't mind Demi," Santana's dad said in a whisper, "you girls know as well as I do how she is. Being around her mother is like plugging her in to an amplifier. Hopefully the two of you won't have to be around to see very much of that."

"Callie doesn't know that Grandma doesn't know either, does she?" Santana asked sadly.

"I don't think so," her dad said before taking a long swig of his drink, "This whole situation is really messed up. I hate being away from you and your brother. Choosing to push your own child away is something I'll never understand. You know when I heard that that asshole Russell Fabray kicked his daughter out, I was ready to march myself up to your mother and tell her we were going to bring that girl home. Dr. Jones beat me to it. It's senseless. The woman was almost killed by a gunman, nearly moved to Africa, and was knocking on death's door all in the last two years. Why risk losing someone so important over something so trivial?"

He paused for a moment before shaking his head and speaking, "There's enough hate in this world, girls. I see it all the time in my operating room. With all the ridiculous hate in the world, you'd think people would be praised for loving. The fact that people can look at it all and still love another person, especially knowing that they are going to become victims of society's bullshit should tell you something. Love's a lot stronger and a lot more important than people want you to believe. Skeptics want everyone to view love as a weakness and bigots want everyone to view love as a privilege given out to whoever is best at conformity and bullshitting. That's not it at all. Love is something you cannot control because if you could, you wouldn't do half of the crazy things it makes you. Love is looking at a sonogram and deciding right at that moment that no matter what happens in your life, that life is the only one that matters. It's also finding someone so incredibly worthy of your love that it doesn't matter if you should or not, because you love them anyway, blood or not,"

He took his deepest breath; "Love is something so incredible to witness that when you see it from the outside, you recognize it for what it is, no matter what it looks like. But those who know love can tell what it is, even from far away. The best disguises aren't good enough to hide love from someone who knows love," he looked at the girls in front of him.

"Daddy," Santana started.

"Love is love forever," he interrupted, "and I love you, both of you, the way that every father should love his children. That's not ever going to change. Take care of each other because you both love me," he said, "and I love you both. And you both love each other."

Santana was quickly wiping her eyes so that her mother wouldn't see and Brittany sat in half-belief of what she was hearing.

"What does that mean?" Santana asked, honestly.

"It means that whatever the future brings," he said lowly, "nothing you do is going to stop me from loving you. Maybe things turn out the way that you hope they will. I hope they do. But, even if they don't, I'm not going to stop."

"Even if I-"

"Even if you do whatever it is you think you should do. You've made no admissions and you don't need to. Not unless you feel like it's what you want to do. Either way, it doesn't matter."

"What about Mom?"

"What about her?" he asked.

"I don't know if she feels the way you do about…everything."

"Somewhere inside of that woman you know is the woman that I knew once. I fell in love with her, so I believe that deep inside of her, she believes too. She may not know that she does, but she does."

"Please don't say anything?"

"They're not my words to say," he said.

As they heard Mrs. Lopez finishing up her call, he took Brittany by the hand and spoke,

"The only thing a child could ever do to make their parent stop loving them would be to hurt another of their children."

She nodded, knowing exactly what was meant in his words. The three of them quickly did their best to clean up their semi-tear streaked faces as Mrs. Lopez returned.

"Have you been crying?" She asked.

The girls froze when Dr. Lopez spoke,

"Oh yeah, Hun, we were just laughing so hard back here. I told the girls that joke about the two guys drinking in the penthouse bar, when the one guy says how funny it would be to jump out the window and fly around the building."

"Oh, Juan," she said, "you love that damn Superman joke."

He nodded and soon after the pilot told them that they were ready to go.

"Get ready ladies," Dr. Lopez said, "we're officially on vacation!"

With a wink, he turned back around and listened as his wife told him all about the call she had just gotten.

Santana reached across the seat and grabbed the blonde girl's hand, giving it a squeeze.

"Are you ready?"

"Of course I'm ready," Brittany said, "proudly so."

xxXXxx

**Thus concludes Chapter 3, more chapters are already being produced, so hopefully updates can come more frequently. If you liked it, let me know. If you didn't, tell me what you'd like instead. Cheers!**


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